I used to think I was a ghost, and that no one knew me, but I am as transparent as the air you breathe. I don’t care about making it big anymore. Now I just want something, anything, to make sense. Maybe some day I will know my purpose, and when that day comes, I just hope I’m still sane enough to help.

Thursday, May 8, 2008

#11: Kept a Secret Relationship from My Friends

In my early university days, there was a girl. Oh yes, how many stories begin this way?

Yes, there was a girl, an intoxicating, intelligent girl with the power to allure any and all around her. Let's call her Karma Chameleon.

I was intensely attracted to her, and she was intensely attracted to me. It was the sort of mutual affection that comes with a feeling of both truly understanding, and challenging one another. Alas there were complications, for you see, I was not the only suitor who sought exclusive rights to her.

There were three of us. The first of the other two was the aforementioned (In #9 and #10) "Data." Data loved to talk, particulaly about history, politics, and sci-fi epics. He has a college history professor in the making. The third and final suitor was a bisexual woman, whom I'm calling Stripperella for my own amusement. (Later, she would become a pole dancer.)

Chameleon and I had been playing a game of slow-building sexual tension for a year by that point, and it seemed that only the pressure from other suitors would bring us together.

It all began with an innocent game of cards. Well, I'm not sure how innocent it was, because at some point we decided to make it more interesting and play a game of strip blackjack. I'm pretty sure it was my idea too. I wiped the walls with her. I never lost a round, and shortly she was completely bare. (Who knows, maybe she kept losing on purpose?) I couldn't believe that she was even more beatiful than I'd imagined, and then the game and my own clothes disappeared. I'm not sure how, it's sort of a blur. This girl was quite intoxicating, in case I haven't mentioned that before. I have, but that's the bext word to describe how I felt about her anyway. She was like a drug. Or a bug light. It was a night of unbridled passion.

But let's skip ahead 24 hours. Data had another party. It was a dinner party, or perhaps better described as a barbecue, but I had to cut out early for a mother's day gathering with my mom, Aunt Twiggy, Auntie Flo, and Grandma Depressia. We later got into a car accident on the highway, (we were fine though), but enough about our evening. Back to the barbecue.

Data also had a whole mess of unsaid feelings towards Cameleon, and kept trying to sweet talk her into going upstairs with him.

Stripperella, who sensed something was amiss, somehow nudged herself in, trying to be a third wheel. I'm not entirely clear how they came to this agreement, but all three of them went to his room together, and Data took off his clothes. Perhaps to save her, or perhaps because she wanted Chameleon to herself, Stripperella started making out with her until Data felt like a thrid wheel.

Let's skip ahead another 24 hours, to a heated argument I had over the phone with Stripperella. Each of us thought we knew something the other didn't. And we were right, but unfortunately it came out wrong, and we both seemed to have an irrational sense of ownership over Chameleon.

Because I only lived a block away, I hung up on Stripperella and heading to Chameleon's to talk to her. That's when I got the full story.

Charma was humiliated and said to me "Everything I gave you two nights ago, I gave the two of them last night." I turns out this wasn't entirely true, but it did explain a lot. So she and I talked for awhile about what we should do. She told me that I was the one she wanted, but that she didn't want to disappoint the others, so what we decided was that the official story would be that isn't ready for that sort of commitment, while in truth, we would have a secret relationship. In my mind it was perfect; their feelings are spared, and we have our relationship. And in truth, it being a secret actually made it that much more fun. There's something somehow that much more intimate, when not only are two people sharing intimacy, but they are only sharing the information that they are sharing intimacy with each other. Good lord, I hope that's not too confusing.

We met with Data and Stripperella the following week-end, and one-by-one, they were informed of her position, and for a time, the tension in our friendships subsided, and we were able to function as friends.

However, over time, my relationship with the Chameleon became stronger, and our affections harder to hide, so it wasn't long before we were outed as a couple.

Data was devasted. Though I'd kept it a secret pramarily to protect him, (so I naively thought), it turns out that what was more important was our trust. I had lied to him, about something very important to both of us. He never forgave me for this.

And I tried many times to apologize, but he never accepted it. Even now, eight or nine years later, he still won't talk to me, though by now it is perhaps more out of indifference than spite.

Recently, (within the past few days), Stripperella made contact with me, and I was suddenly reminded of another reason to put her on the list, which I'll do at another time. But I also think it's fair to note that I owe her something here too. I hurt both of them; she was just more forgiving about it.

1 comment:

tea, earl grey, hot and sweaty.
said...

I think if you did come out with it and told them both the truth from the beginning things wouldn't be different, you'd all go your separate ways because it would have bothered them to much to be around you and that would have festered into something worse than what it is now. The Anasazi* have a saying: To eat at a banquet with friends and then to only have dessert for one ruins any evening. Especially when the good details that I've been waiting for have been omitted...

*I just totally made that up. The Anasazi* were above any sort of stupid pseudo-philosophical sayings like that.

*That too was made up, I have no idea who the Anasazi were or what they did. Let alone what their opinions were on pseudo-philosophy, dinner banquets, or dessert.